“Oh, Sir Gordon,” cried Julia, colouring deeply, “I am so sorry!”
“Oh, sorrow is no good after such a charge as that!” said Sir Gordon with mock severity. “So you and your mamma have determined that I am a very wicked old man, eh?”
“Sir Gordon!” cried Julia, taking his hand. “Indeed, indeed, I only meant that Mr Bayle was the best and kindest of friends.”
“While I was the most testy, exacting, and—”
“Indeed, no,” cried Julia, with spirit; “and I will not have you condemn yourself. Next to Mr Bayle, mamma and I like you better than any one we know.”
“Ah! well, here is Bayle,” said Sir Gordon, as a knock was heard; and the curate appeared next minute in the doorway.
The lamp had been lit, and his face looked so serious and pale that Sir Gordon noticed the fact on the instant.
“Why, Bayle,” he cried warmly, “how bad you look! Not ill?”
“Ill? No; oh, no!” he said quietly. “I have been detained by business.”
Mrs Hallam looked at him anxiously, for beneath the calm there was ever a strange state of excitement waiting to break forth. For years she had been living in the expectation that the next day some important news would come from her husband. Letters she had very few, but the postman’s knock made her turn pale and place her hand to her heart, to check its wild beatings, while the coming of a stranger to the house had before now completely unnerved her. It was but natural, then, that she should become agitated by Bayle’s manner. A thousand—ten thousand things might have happened to disturb her old friend, but in her half-hysterical state she could find but one cause—her own troubles; and, starting up with her hand on her breast, she exclaimed: